Decidedly NOT in Paradise

Swift stands with her hands on her hips. "Um...did you just blast Hawkgirl to smithereens?"

"Wait .. YES! Yes, me did!" says Lightseid happily.

"Because me am imperfect duplicate of Darkseid," he burbles on. "Darkseid's Omega Beam blast victim to atoms, so my Alpha Beam must do exact same thing! Curses and infamy!" he says cheerfully.

"She must no be totally fine somewhere!"

Swift taps her foot repeatedly, accidentally causing a rather deep ditch.

"Well, phooey, I don't think I can run there." She gestures at herself and the ape.

"Maybe you should send us, too. She might need help."

Swift looks at the ape, who she just figured out was unconscious, as she had been busy zooming her gaze all over the landscape.

"Well, that's just swell!"

"Lightseidy thingy! I feel it is time for you to surrender!"

"Yes!" says Lightseid, and shoots Swift and Valendar with his Alpha Beams.

Now, Swift sees them coming, and she's very fast, so she may be able to dodge them.

Very difficult question...dodge and live? Or trust that he seemed...she thinks, if she didn't switch his words inaccurately, to have sent Hawkgirl somewhere.

She grits her teeth and holds onto the ape.

BRADABADADADADOOOOM!

And just like that, Swift (and Valendar) are on Apokolips.

The sky is twisted in firey skeins while Kanto and Hawkgirl, their swords raised, challenge Verman Vundabar.

"Ach!" says that worthy, "but these Hawk Stormtroopers of yours, save this one, are far away at the moment! I think that with my two minions, Botanifex and the Bi-Clops, the forces of Vundabar may yet prevail!"

And indeed, a shambling overgrown mossy tree wielding a massive wooden ax, and a big guy with two eyes clad in intertwining orange and blue mechanical techno-armor, stand to flank Vundabar on either side.

"So, then, to arms!" Vundabar concludes. He taps his baton, and shimmering blades of laser light, one blue, one green, emerge from its ends. He holds it in the middle, which is surely the least painful place to hold it.

BRADADADOOM! Goes the Alpha Beam effect as Swift and Valendar arrive.

"Oh, what now?" demands Vundabar.

"A Boom Tube?" muses Kanto. "No ... too brilliant. This latest accretion of force cannot stem from our absent lord, great Darkseid. And a good thing, too, as he would find our struggle for power among ourselves distasteful, if not altogether surprising ... it hardly matters, though, Verman, whether this latest arrival supports you or me; for by the time they have emerged and collected their wits, my agile ally and I shall have crossed our swords some inches behind your red velvet jacket."

Kanto doffs his fancy feathered hat and makes an elegant bow to Hawkgirl.

"My lady? Shall we send this stiff-necked fellow to a damnation which may, for all we know, be an improvement over the Armaghetto?"

Having been raised by basically medieval cops with artful electronics and mechanics, Hawkgirl makes her curtsey. And remembers some fencing vocab, which is, after all, largely drawn from the Italian:

"Combattendo due a uno?"

"Si, uno a uno!" says Kanto.

He points his sword at Verman Vundabar and advances, as Verman advances towards him.

The Bi-Clops, clad in techno-active blue and orange armor, ruffs his shoulders into fans of electrically crackling quills.

Botanifex, meanwhile, just stands there in the moist street under the glare of the red sun. But his leaves spread and curl, and he puts on a few more inches of wooden muscle.

Swift uses her lightning reflexes to be wherever it looks like she'd do the most good. She picks up a stone or something as she moves, to have something to throw at high speed if needed.

Well, Vundabar's two minions are unopposed, although they don't seem about to interfere in Kanto vs. Vundabar.

However, Bi-Clops has now dressed his armor in taser-spikes and is looking for an opponent. He is about to move toward Hawkgirl.

Hawkgirl thinks the electrical mace might be a better choice against Bi-Clops. She pulls it out and wallops him with it--in the face.

Bi-Clops swings his crackling needle-lined arm, but too slowly! He takes an electrical crack to the face.

"One eye is closed ... but that leaves my special power, my EXTRA EYE, to find you!"

Whereas Botanifex is just biding his time, growing, as plants will.